Google: Kids Should Erase Their Identities

Over the weekend, Google CEO Eric Schmidt sat down
with Wall Street Journal columnist Holman Jenkins. It was largely an
opportunity for Schmidt to push back against allegations that Google has reached its peak. As a result, Schmidt spent a lot of time talking about the groovy, futuristic things Google is working on:

If
you need milk and there's a place nearby to get milk, Google will
remind you to get milk. It will tell you a store ahead has a collection
of horse-racing posters, that a 19th-century murder you've been reading
about took place on the next block.

While that all
sounds pretty helpful, some of Schmidt's premonitions were downright
dystopian. In one exchange, he predicted a future in which changing
your name will be a kind of rite of passage for children. They'll do it
to escape the "digital trail" of youthful indiscretions (lurid Facebook
photos, profane tweets, etc.):

He predicts,
apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled
automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order
to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends' social media
sites...

"I don't believe society understands what happens
when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the
time... I mean we really have to think about these things as a society."